SNAIL MAIL BY MARY SCOVIAK Belgian entrepreneur Vincent Dardenne sends a love letter to his hometown of Namur, with the locally inspired Royal Snail hotel. 2 is very good at connecting the dots. During his first job as an event planner working in and around the Wallonian capital, he heard plenty of complaints from visitors and locals about the city's lack of a late-night convenience store. It wasn't long before he and his friends/business associates Jerome Giraud and Philippe Clinet pooled their resources to open the first Night & Day. Fast forward 20 years, 67 convenience stores and a lot of frequent flying/driving/train traveling kilome1 52 boutiquedesign.com MAY 2014 Both the choice of graphics and installation techniques had to be customized for each of the 30 guest rooms. What they all share: an emphasis on natural and handcrafted FF&E. 2 Vincent Dardenne wanted his first hotel to be about its locale "in every way." That informed his decision to use the city's symbol, the snail, for the property's name, in its branding, as a design element throughout-and, here, to add a local touch to an urban chic turnout. COU RTE SY D ESIG N HOT ELS (THE ROYAL SN AIL); STEV E HE RU D (D AR D ENN E ) NAMUR NATIVE Vincent Dardennehttp://www.boutiquedesign.com